Once upon a time
by supernavy97
Summary: Madi looked up in order to lock her gaze with Clarke's. "Tell me a story about the guys that fell from the sky. The guys who fought the world and inherited the planet before being forced to come back to space again"
1. the joker

**Once upon a time**

 _1\. the joker_

Madi was crying out loud, that night, tears rolling down her cheeks following her long brown braids as her eyes were shut and her voice a cracked howl in the dark. There were no sparkles, that night, no moonlights or shooting starts, just a deep and gloomy obscurity caging the world in its claws, a prison of silent hours lost in wishes of something more, lost in the hopes of something better.  
Her throat hurt for the neverending screaming and the echo of her voice was continuosly coming back to her ears, witness of the pain she was accusing the world for. She was a child, but since when the Praimfaya had destroyed Earth, she wasn't a child anymore. She was a survivor, a little nightblood on the edge of getting crazy, abandoned on the battlefield of what for the most had been the end of the world. She lost friends, she lost family and she probably lost herself too, her innocence, her being a cheerful 9-years-old kid along with her people, now ashes in the wind.  
It was a dreadful night, that night, and the memories of the past were blooming in her head like flowers in spring before a warm hand caressed her shoulder, turning her around and dragging her little body against something, against somebody.  
She immidiatly recognised Clarke's warmth and smell, her touch and gentleness _not that there were so many people around_ and like everytime she had catched her in one of her crisis, she suddenly felt better. It wasn't some kind of magic spell or witchy trick, it was just that sometimes, when the reality of what had happened was too real, the simple contact of a human body could make her feel loved, once again: it made her feel at home.

Madi looked up at the sweet face over hers and managed to slightly smile back, before lying down on the grass and trying to catch on the flow of her sobs. She left out a long breath while turning on a side, now locking her gaze with the girl next to her. She waited a moment, then spoke with eyes still teary but now finally shining again.

"Tell me a story about the guys that fell from the sky" she said quietly, every word a whisper in the night.

"The guys who fought the world and inherited the planet before being forced to come back to space again"

Clarke Griffin smiled and even though it was dark as hell and there was nothing to smile for on that savage Earth, Madi still thought she had the most beautiful smile she had ever seen.

She got up a bit, sitting on that greenish field, her gaze lost in the magnificent emptiness of space _or in what they could imagine there was over that unmoveable cloud, at least_ and took some deep breaths before starting to talk.

"Tonight's story is about a boy, a young boy always wearing glasses and enjoying the beauty of life. A boy whose laugh was the brightness of the day, whose partying spirit was the soul of the night. A joker, we could say"

Madi stared at her with burning desire, her demons now fallen asleep.

"He fell in love the first day here on Earth: probably with the magic of nature, surely with a playful girl whose name recalled the old commanders. It was then he crossed the line for the first time: on the road for our supposed destination he dove into a fresh river and emerged _on the other side_ braver than ever, stronger than never. However, was captured soon later; he managed to get on the other side but unfortunately it was not the right side, the one we had hoped for at least. It was a battlefield fierce as nothing, cruel as few".

Madi interrupted her with a scared expression, trying to guess the continue of the story "And, and did you rescue him? Did he die?"

Clarke stopped to talk for a moment, the reality of that sentence so stucked in her memory. _Did he die?_ When she carried on the story Madi coulnd't see it, but her eyes got tearier as the regrets of the past were fighting in her mind.

"He didn't" she reassured her "We saved him soon after and discovered the grounders had healed his wounds. We managed to bring him back home and in some days he was the same as ever, maybe a little tougher with scars covering his body, a little afraid, but he was still the source of the joy flowing around the camp. Once I had an appointment with the men of the forest and he was chosen as one of the guards that had to protect me from a possible trap, for a probable counter-attack and he kept on talking about how good he had been for ages. Nobody could hear that story anymore after he had been spreading news about Jasper the hero for weeks"

She laughed a bit, remembering.

"He was so innocent, so pure".

"And what happened next?"

"What happened next? That's a good question" she waited, catched her breath before going on "I was next. I destroyed him"

"You?"

"Me, yes. Does it sound odd? Do I look that good?" she asked her.  
 _Do I look that fake?_ She asked herself.

"You are good" She replied, giving her the illusion of a world without sins, of a world without guilt.

" _You_ are, my little _natblida_. Anyway, _I_ happened next. There was a war and we were captured, caged inside a mountain, inside a bunker. It seemed like heaven, everything was so perfect, so peaceful that we couldn't believe we were still on that planet that had treated us so bad. But I couldn't fall under that spell, I didn't believe such a good place could exist. And I was right, we weren't at home, we weren't welcomed as guests, but as experiments instead. They wanted to exploit us for our ability to reject radiations and after having managed to escape, after having discovered their plan, I tried to stop them and I succeed. The point is, my little _natblida_ , we always have to pay a price to achieve something, every step we take, every decision we make has consequences and Mount Weather had terrible ones"

Clarke looked up at the sky that didn't seem willing to let any start shine that night.

"He had fallen in love in that mountain. Among all that hypocrisy, he found the road to happiness, he found a way to live. And I have taken life from him. My decisions costed that much. I killed him along with other innocents in order to save the fourty-one that fell from sky with us and were made prisoners, guinea pigs, for they way they were, for the blood that run trhough their veins, for the air they could breathe.  
I sent him to the other side."

"It was red, Mount Weather, it was a red grave no one escaped alive. We all died there, in a way, we all did, even though he have never understood that. It wasn't the best choice we made, but it was the only one we could make back then, the only one we had with so little time and so many of us to save"

A tear escaped her eye as Madi looked up to lock their gazes.

" _We_?"

She kissed her forehead, feeling the preciousness of the tresure in her hands.  
It was not the right time.

"That's another story, my love, for another day" she whispered.

"Time to sleep now"


	2. the human

**Once upon a time**

2\. the human

It was a boring morning, that morning. The sky was red and the weather was hot while they walked through the ruins of the past searching for anything that could remind of life; either a green spot or a blue pound would have been so precious, but neither of them could be found on that devastated land.

They were hunting, seeking for fortune among the unluckiest scenery Earth had ever hosted and Madi was hungry, the insects they had eaten the night before still in her memory, disgusting as anything. But it was food, at least, it was something.

She was playing, jumping on rocks and sliding under fallen trees, complaining at the same time for the roughness the world was treating them with. Clarke could neither scold her nor disagree with her as she was just an 8-years-old kid ripped from her family and left alone in a new era, with nobody to look after her, nobody to protect her. She had been strong enough to survive, but not strong enough to get away without scars and her demons were haunting her every night. She was just a kid, in the end. A lucky one, a good one.

"Tell me a story about the guys that fell from the sky" she said, suddenly.

"The guys who fought the world and inherited the planet before being forced to come back to space again" she added.

Clarke was surprised at her request, trying to discover were she had been hiding and after founding her behind a big stone wearing a playful smile, she couldn't help but begin with the narration.

"Today's story is about a girl" she started, hearing her joy at the revelation of the female protagonist. "A girl with small eyes and an enchanted smile, with the strenght of an army and the kindness of a child. She was a soldier, but she was a woman, too.  
Octavia from Skaikru they used to call her, but it wasn't entirely correct as she didn't actually belong only to us: she belonged everywhere."

Madi was gettier happier as the thought of food was slightly disappearing into the back of her mind, replaced by the excitment of knowing how the story would have continued.

"You know, back to when we used to live in the sky, our spaceship wasn't too big and the food wasn't too much so it was decided that every family could only have one kid. It was for the sake of everyone, but it happened that she wasn't alone. She had a brother. Actually her brother had her as she was the second one born and because of that she had to live for sixteen years under the pavement of their room".

"That's more than twice my age!" Madi screamed, "That's impossible, how could she even breath?"

"Trust me my little _natblida_ , she could. She was very strong, remember? Anyway one day a guard with a black uniform and a rifle in his hand discovered her and she was imprisoned, trapped in a room along with other delinquents before being sent here to live – or to die."

"She was one of the hundred then!"

"She was!"

"And you were one of them too, weren't you?"

"I was, yes. And we came here together, that's when I've met her for the first time. She was actually the one who managed to touch the ground for the first time in years. She was the first one breathing a radioactive-supposed-air, feeling the sun shining on her after ages of artificial nature"

She stopped to talk for a moment, remembering that first day on Earth.  
 _Stop! The air could be tossic.  
If it is, we are all dead anyway._  
And it wasn't. Luckly, it wasn't.

"And then?"

"Then she fell in love"

"With the joker?"

"No" she smiled, "No, not with the joker. Even though they kissed once!" she smirked. "She fell in love with a grounder. An extremely kind one who had saved her life even before knowing who she truly was. His name was Lincoln. Lincoln the grounder who had a secret diary full of sketches, a box full of magic potions and a heart full of love. And they loved each other a lot, maybe too much for a world were love was considered a weakness. They even tried to make our clans allies, but when they failed they understood there was no hope left. He suggested that they had better escaped together, but she felt she had responsabilities as she couldn't think of leaving us alone and chose blood over love."

"Blood over love?"

"She chose us, leaving her lovest one behind"

"And then?"

"Then Mount Weather happened, again. He was captured"

"And did they used him for his blood?"

"No, they didn't. He was too strong for that, so they had to put him into another project. It was called Cerbero project, from the mythologic three-headed dog, and God only knows the pain he went through".

She waited a moment before carrying on with the story.

"He became a reaper and forgot about everything that wasn't a dose of his drugs. He couldn't even recognise his loved one. Luckily, after not few difficulties, we managed to bring him back from what was a limbo between life and death. And they were in love even more than before. Soon after Octavia sided with the grounders, becoming the pupil of one of their leaders, but Lincoln wanted to stay with us in order to show people that we could cooperate, to show them that we could really become _one_ crew. He still believed in the dream of humanity being one big family. As I told you, he had a really big heart"

"And then?"

"Then a man with idealistic and unpractical dreams came" she stopped. Then carried on with the story, looking somewhere into the ruins.

"And death came with him. So many people left this world because of his hands and Lincoln was one of them. He sacrificed himself trying to save his people. He was a hero, but for Octavia he was dead. And she was dead too. She suffered the sorrows of thousands seeing his excecution, seeing his blood in rivers on the ground, his eyes searching for her through the woods hoping to meet again, one day, when all this human selfness would have been overcome."

She looked at the tears in Madi's eyes, going on.

"Then she let all the anger she was feeling explode and became a warrior nobody could fight, nobody could escape. She won a conclave that declared her the commander of the thirteen clans and won the bunker that managed to save twelve thousand people from the Praimfaya"

"She was the hero, the one who saved the world, wasn't she?"

"She was one of the heroes" she agreed "She was a warrior, a grounder, she was the one that warned us about the arrival of the Ice nation risking her life and letting us prepare a counterattack; she was the one that discovered the magic of bioluminescent butterflies back when the world still seemed the so long hidden heaven we were dreaming about".

She paused for some moments.

"This is the story, my little _natblida_ , of the one who taught us how to be human".


	3. the warrior

**Once upon a time**

3\. the warrior

Madi looked up at the sky, that night, and she was surprised when she noticed a feeble ray of light making its way through that tossic grey cloud that was still surrounding the planet. It had been months of dark and impenetrable nights, hidden in the fog of radiations, but that night, that night, there was a sparkle. It was small and almost invisible, a spot among the infinity of space, but it was there.

She stood up from the rock she was sat on and started running to the rover where Clarke was reading an old book, over the messy blankets that were their beds.

"Clarke!" she screamed jumping on the car with a 32-teeth smile "Clarke come with me now!"

The girl was startled as the little kid appeared so suddenly and it took some minutes before she could realise she had to actually follow her, it was usually the other way around. However, when she finally saw what the little girl was so longing her to see, she was completely amazed, enchanted under the view of a a light in the nightsky after there had been none for so long.

Her memories became so vivid that moment, she could almost feel the tears reaching her eyes. Staring at that little hint of life in the universe she lied down on the ground, remembering, dreaming, hoping again.

Then Madi interrupted her thoughts, but she had seen it coming this time. It was so obvious, so predictable.

"Tell me a story about the guys that fell from the sky" she said.

"The guys who fought the world and inherited the planet before being forced to come back to space again"

Clarke smiled in the dark, caressing the head of the kid next to her. She was so innocent, so pure, so young for witnessing all of that.

"Tonight's story is about a monster" she started, leaving a confused expression on Madi who was trying to guess who the story would have been about. "a good one" she added, before lying down on the cold ground "A good monster and a warrior"

"Her name was Raven, and she was a monster of technology, a monster that could fix everything and no devices exited her lab without having been repaired first. She used to love space a lot and dreamt of spacewalking in the universe having no limits, no boundaries, no goals to reach, just an extreme feeling of freedom. And one day her wish came true as a young boy too brave to fear consequences, too naive to actually think about them, opened a door and let her float over the infinity" she said, looking at the dreaming expression of the child's face.

"She loved it more than anything else, probably even more than her own life, and spent the following days, the following months, the following years trying to get that feeling back. But she couldn't. The world was so small on our spaceship, so strict with its rules, so claustrophobic that she felt suffocating, she felt dying. Then, one day, after the hundred delinquents were sent on the Earth, a girl-"

Madi suddenly interrumpted her, speaking with excitment "And you were among them, right?" she asked, "And the joker was with them too, you were all _the hundred,_ right?"

Clarke caressed her cute face, nodding.

"Yes we all were. Anyway, as I was saying, a girl approached the monster asking her for a favour. She was confused at first, but after having been told that she could have gone to the Earth too, that she could have followed the young boy, she decided to accept the work and came down here. The planet was so beautiful back then, flowers were blooming and the sun shined almost every day that she fell in love a second time. She fell in love with nature as everything was so real, so unbelievably alive. However, the Earth wasn't just the heaven we all dreamt about and she soon realized it too: grounders dressed with trees and fallen leaves tried to kill them with poison and firing arrows and she discovered the hardness and disappointment of a betrayal. What's more-"

"Lincoln tried to kill you?"

"No he didn't, but others did. We were enemies back then"

"And now, are you?"

Clarke reflected a minute before answering.

"I don't think we are, I hope not. Anyway, as I was saying, she was betrayed by her loved one and even one of the hundred fired a shot at her, trying to escape his sins. Since that day, she wasn't the same anymore. She lost a leg and she lost friends, she lost the boy she loved and assisted his execution, crying in the night as she saw the life getting away from his body".

"Did she cry?"

"She did, she cried in the night so loud, everyone could hear her pain. But it wasn't the end, it couldn't be. We had to go on. And we did, she did, until our old leader came back to the camp with an illusion and not being able to bare her pain, she got lost in it. She lost her memories in a world of light so incredibly safe and so incredibly fake. She forgot about everything that was painful and if it wasn't just that it woudl have been ok, but the point is, my little natblida, that life is made of pain as well as of joy and along with the pain she started forgetting about her loved ones too. She forgot about her first kiss, she forgot the boy".

"But why did she? Wasn't the boy a happy memory?"

"He was, of course he was, but happiness does neve come alone, and there are always moments of doubt, moments of sadness and by forgetting them, she was forgetting everything else too. However, if you have listened well, I told you the girl was a monster, she was a warrior, and even though she wasn't herself anymore, she didn't stop fighting until she had everything back. Some used to say she chose pain over happiness, but she didn't. She didn't just choose pain: she chose life. She gave up the illusion of a life without sorrow for a world of sufference and death, but real in the smell of those flowers and the freshness of the wind, real in the way her friends supported her, real in the way a painful past was still worth the memory. She was the first one to react and the warrior of a war which wasn't hers but that she fought until the very end"

She stopped to talk for a while, looking up at that little light, as she was almost searching for something, calling for somebody.

"And then" she continued "Then she became stronger than ever, stronger than anybody. The moster died and reborn from her own ashes, becoming unbeatable"

"This is the story of a girl, my little _natblida_ , the story of a monster, the story of a warrior. This is the story of how humanity survived the end of the world for a second time and flied away to that place we won't ever know. The story of how in some years you will be able to see a shooting star over all this dullness"


	4. the survivor

**Once upon a time**

4\. the survivor

They were walking through the land, that afternoon, when they had an encounter neither of them had imagined could have happened. They were talking about how the world had started to live again, how a green stain had been spreading under their feet and over for more than hundreds of meters around them, when they heard a noise, a slight and buzzing noise too near to think they had imagined it. They both turned to the direction they thought the noise had come from and they were surprised as well as happier than ever when they saw a little squirrel climbing the highest tree. To say they were fascinated would be right enough as that was the first signal of living they had found in months – except for plants, of course.

Madi was so enthusiastic she couldn't help but scream in ecstasy while running around the tree, trying to have a closer look at the little animal.

"That's so beautiful!" she said, nothing could have taken her away from the magic of the nature that after years had finally started to reborn. "He's so small, he seems so fragile, but he's alive!" she cried from one of the lowest branches. She was actually trying to climb the tree herself.

Clarke couldn't do anything, but smile at the view of so much joy, of so much life.

"He's a survivor" she added "We all are".

It was when she looked away for a second and the little girl understood she couldn't climb a tree with so few branches that she came up with the idea of a fairy tail.

"Tell me a story about the guys that fell from the sky" she said.

"The guys who fought the world and inherited the planet before being forced to come back to space again"

Clarke smiled at her curious look, while she sat on the closer pack of leaves to the tree.

"This afternoon's story is about a boy"

"A boy with no glasses" Madi guessed.

"Yes, a boy with no glasses and not a joker at all. He was a survivor tought. Like the squirrel we saw before, he did all he could to stay alive no matter the situation, no matter the people, no matter the consequences. He was a survivor, that's all he was".

"Is it a bad thing, to be a survivor?"

"No, it isn't, but sometimes you can't think of survival alone, you have to care about what's surrounding you too. Anyway, he was one of the hundred and along with us all came here to live. At the beginning, he was the second in command of our leader, but soon after due to some misunderstanding that almoust caused his death and some vengeance that couldn't be repressed, he was outcasted from our camp and declared a savage. He was alone."

"But why did you do that? He was one of you, wasn't him?"

"He was, but his actions, even though they were probably right, caused a little girl to commit suicide and although it wasn't completely his fault, although the girl wasn't innocent at all, she was just a kid whereas he was older and smarter and should have shown some pity. That's why we decided not to kill him, but to let him live outside the camp."

"And he never came back?"

"He did. Actually he was captured by grounders and-"

"Wait, why are you always captured by someone?"

"I don't know, my baby, maybe because we had just arrived and we were young, we were immature, we were unprepared for all of that"

"That could be true"

"He did come back, by the way. He was captured and then released, affected by an illness that caused lot of us to die. It was then when, trying to get away again, he took a rifle and fired a shot to the girl who was kind of looking after him"

"The monster?" she asked, almost screaming.

"Yes, he was the one who shot the monster, the one who shot the warrior, but that was something he later regretted a lot. He was too scared, back then, to realise the importance of his actions, but trust me, he later understood his guilt, his sins, his mistakes".

Clarke breathed the freshness of that new world. It was so real, so safe she almost didn't believe it.

"And what did he do after having escaped?"

"He came back to us when the others arrived, when the second spaceship fell from the sky. He was safe then, but he wasn't at home. He spent his days as an outcast even though he was supposed to be at home, until our old commander, thought to be dead, came back and lead a team of few people in a spiritual journey that had to take them to the city of light".

"Wasn't that the illusion of no pain?"

"Yes it was, my smart listener, but they didn't know it yet. They were told it was the heaven everyone had been looking for and as there were no other acceptable choices they gave it a try and decided to search for it. After they had found it, they were kind of drugged and the survivor realised that it wasn't heaven, but a prison in their own minds and that was the moment he decided to escape with Emori in order to save both of them".

"Who is Emori?" Madi asked full of excitment

"Oh right, I forgot to mention it, but while they were searching for the city of light they met a girl, an outcast, originally from Trishanakru, but then rejected from her clan because of the way radiations affected her hand, shaping it in an abnormal way"

"And did they fall in love?"

"Yes they did. And she was the only one he cared about in the entire world. Even more than us, because she understood him in a way we couldn't. They were both outcasts, both survivors."

"And what happened next? You can't finish a story like that" she complained.

"Oh a lot happened after the city of light, my dear. Black rains, no shelter for an apocalypse that we knew was coming, but even among all those difficulties they managed to do what they were best at. They survived. Together. And when the time came and there was no room for them in the bunker that would have saved only the most useful ones, they joined me and some others in a trip to save the warrior who later managed to save them all. And what's surprising, my dear, it's that he did it, he was able to help others not only for his own sake, but for the sake of everyone".

"And where are them now if not in the bunker? Didn't the bunker save twelve thousand people? How come it couldn't save two more?"

"They are not over there. They are up there" she said pointing over the squirrel, over the trees, over the cloud that everyday seemed thiner, seemed safer "They are there, together, with the warrior and some others. They survived".

"And why aren't you with them?"

Clarke didn't know what to answer, not knowing the answer herself.

"'Cause I had to find you, my little _natblida_ , in order to tell you all these stories" she joked, looking up at the sky again, over the clouds, over the past, somewhere lost in space, somewhere lost in hope.


	5. the doctor

**Once upon a time**

5\. the doctor

Clarke was on top of the rover, that morning, crossed legs and a melancholic look in her eyes. She was drawing: the little charcoal that was left, in her hands, the few colors she could make, on a bunch of leaves nearby. It was a portrait of a woman with long hair and a sad smile, right in front of a wooden house lost in the woods. It was a portrait of another age, with different landscapes and different realities as it couldn't be a representative of that new age with so little nature left.

She didn't realise she was crying until a young girl appeared at her side with a scared expression on her face and an alarmed look in her eyes.

"Clarke! What happened, why are you crying?" she asked, jumping on the rover with the agility of a monkey. She actually did look like a cute monkey, she thought.

"Ehy, my little _natblida_ , no worries" she answered, hugging her with a fake smile, clinging to her as she was the last human being on Earth – which, as far as she knew, she was.

"Clarke, you sure you're okay?" she asked again, worried as never.

"I am. I am, don't worry, baby. What about I tell you a story about the guys that fell from the sky" she tried, "The guys who fought the world and inherited the planet before being forced to come back to space again".

Madi looked at her with a cheerful smile, so deeply in love with the fairy tailes about the spacemen.

Clarke smiled back, gathering her strenghts and remembering.

"Today's story is about a woman" she began "A woman who was a doctor and who was a mother. She had been helping others, trying to save their life for as long as I can remember; and she had been loving her daughter since the moment she was born, even tough she didn't always realise that".

"What was her name?"

"Her name was Abigail, but everyone called her Abby"

"Was she one of the hundred?"

"No, she wasn't. This time you're wrong" she laughed "She was on the second spaceship that landed on Earth, the one that arrived after we were imprisoned in Mount Weather"

Madi nodded, remembering the old stories, and in that moment Clarke realised it was no use telling her about her actions on Earth, but it would have been way better to tell her about her actions on the Ark, about her being a mother, about her being a guide.

"Today's story will be a little different" she added "I won't tell you about the Abby on Earth, but about who she had been on the spaceship. As I told you, she was a mother, a young and beautiful one. She was kind as the morning light and cold as winter, when she needed to. She would have stayed up nights, one after the other, just to be sure her patients were okay, and would have risked her own life in order to save every single life. She was a doctor and she was a saviour"

"And was she one of the good or the bad ones?"

Clarke went with her mind to the past and the memories of the Ark came back so cruel, as well as her words back to the days in Polis.  
 _Remember you are one of the good ones, Clarke._

"She wasn't a bad one, but neither the best one. You know, my little _natblida_ , sometimes the borders aren't so clear, sometimes it's not just black and white. There is grey too. And we are human, we _are_ grey".

"Are we grey too?"

"I am, that's for sure. But you" she thought "You could be as white as snow"

"I don't want to be white"

"Why? It's a good thing, to be white. It's something you should be proud of"

"But, but if you are grey and I'm white we will be separated, won't we?"

Clarke smiled at the innocence Madi was speaking with, spokeman of a youth long stolen from her, but whose small pieces still remained, somewhere lost in her soul.

"We won't" she kissed her forehead "We won't" she repeated. "That's her, by the way. The doctor and the saviour. The mother".

The little kid got enthusiastic again just for a drawing on a piece of wood they had found untouched.

"Is she on the spaceship with the others?" she asked.

"No, she's not. Just few of us had to come back to space".

"But you always tell me stories about the guys who fell from the sky, who fought the world and inherited the planet before being forced to come back to space again"

"Yes I do and it's right, but not all of them went back to space. There is still the bunker, remember?"

"Oh, so is she in the bunker? The one we couldn't move the ruins from?"

"She is. And Octavia is there too".

"Yeah, she's the commander!"

"No doubts she is!"

"But Clarke, I have a question. How long is it before we can see the others?"

"Still a year, my dear, but then, trust me, they will come back and you'll know all of them and you'll fell in love with all of them such as I did"

"Even with the survivor?"

"Even with the survivor"

"And will we stay together?"

Clarke got stuck on those words, everytime so precious and melancholic at the same time.  
 _Together.  
Together._

"Together".


	6. the leader

**Once upon a time**

6\. the leader

It was an incredibly clear night, that night. Clarke was pointing the radio up to the sky, trying to reach the furthest place possible even though she probably knew those few meters wouldn't have made any difference if there was no tower working. Costellations of stars were shining on a dark ocean, like glitter on night dress, like hints of hope in a deep sea of resignation. It had been years since Praimfaya and months since when the others should have come down, but there she was, alone, again, in that land long forgotten. She was wondering, like every evening, like every morning, _hoping_ , dreaming. But like every evening, like every morning there was no answer, just a silence that was taking away each one of her breaths.

Madi found Clarke on a spot of green nearby, not too far away from the rover, not close enough so that she could have listened to her disconnected thoughts on the radio. She had a melancholic expression, the word "sadness" written all over her face while she was looking up at the sky in a daydreaming moment.

She walked in small steps, trying not to make any noise and when she got to the girl she stared at her with quiet eyes, trying to understand, trying to find a way to fill the huge emptiness of her heart.

"Hey" she said, getting closer "Have you already radioed tonight?" she asked, trying, again, to be part of what she was, of the world she had come from that was so still inside her, alive as nothing down there.

"Hey" she exclamed, seeing the kid who was no longer a kid "I have just finished" she added, hiding the radio behind her.

"What about a story?" she asked then, changing the subject, avoiding the questions. "It's been a long time since I last told you one".

Madi nodded, she had grown up and even though she used to love those stories a lot, they became kind of unrealistic and when no spaceship came down to Earth after five years she even started to doubt them. The only thing that assured her in a way that they were true, was the sight of Clarke radioing every single day to the silence of space despite receiving no answer.

"It's ok, if you don't mind" she answered "You know I love them"

"Ok then" she finally smiled, thinking about something. "Tonight's story will be about a girl-"

She was about to start narrating when Madi suddenly interrupted her.

"No" she said "Tonight's story won't be about a girl" she declared.  
She waited some seconds before going on, looking at Clarke's surprised expression getting more and more confused. "Tonight's story won't be about a joker or a human or a monster. It won't be about a doctor or a survivor. But it will be, instead, about a leader. About a man with a name and no voice, about a soul lost in the depth of the universe, unable to come back to the place it belongs to".

"Tonight story will be about-"

"Bellamy" she concluded, staring at her, no confusion on her face anymore; "I will tell you about Bellamy" she finished.

Madi was strangely nervous, as if the thought of finally knowing the man Clarke had been talking to for years, could disappoint her in some way.

"He was a rebel, Bellamy" she started, searching for something in the night sky "He was strong. And kind. And affectionate to everyone" she paused, finding it incredibly difficult to talk about him. He was so important, so meaningful to her that words could have never been enough to describe him, to actually remind of his existence. "He had a sister too".

"Octavia kom skaikru" she kind of answered "The commander of the bunker. The human".

"The commander, yes. They were so bounded, so close to each other they would have given their own life to save the other's. They fought a lot too, but the love they shared allowed them to overcome every obstacole in their way. She was actually the reason he came back to Earth as he wasn't one of the hundred. He was the one hundred-one".

"The one hundred-one? Weren't you just a hundred when you arrived?"

"We should have been just a hundred, but Bellamy jumped on the dropship at the last minute in order to follow her sister here and protect her. He was a rebel, I told you".

"And how come he became the leader?"

"Because he was very persuasive too. He managed to make people feel safe, to make them feel protected even though they weren't. There was one night I tried to make him realise what they were doing, how rules had to be made and he just answered "We do whatever the hell we want" with people choreing for him in the background. He was a rebel leader and nobody could stop him from being so."

"And nothing happened? He remained like that for the whole time you were on Earth?"

"No, he didn't. Soon after he realised it too. That rules had to be made or nobody would have survived. _We_ became the leaders and he let me share that burden with him. Because, you know, my little _natblida_ , being a leader isn't always that easy. Difficult choices have to be made and the weight of their consequences can haunt you for a long time".

"Mount Weather?"

"Yes, like Mount Weather. He was with me when we decided to pull that lever. Together. But even before that we were forced to do things, to kill people againts our will because we had to, we had to protect our guys, our home. One day we had to decide whether to torture or not a grounder and I told him that torturing people wasn't who we were, that we were more than that. But in some situations you have to change who you are, you have to wear a mask and take the pain, you have to endure in order to let your people survive without demons in their neightmares. And do you know what he answered?"

"That you actually were those kind of people?"

"Yes, at the beginning he said that maybe we changed our way of being. That maybe now that's what we were: torturers, murderers. Maybe that was what we had to be in order to protect everyone, that was what we had to bare with, being the leaders. But soon after he changed his mind and came to me with better words, with better thougths saying that who we were and what we had to be to survive, were very different things. It may seem stupid and trivial but back then it was very important for us because it was the proof we were still human, it was the certaincy we needed, the certancy _I_ needed to be strong, to be a leader. We managed to support ourself thanks to those words".

"And then?"

"Then, after Mount Weather, I couldn't bare the pain of seeing my friends every day because it would have always reminded me of the price we had to pay to have them. So I decided to leave and that, my dear, was the worst choice of all. I left them, but mostly I left him. I left him alone to rule, to protect, to be a guide. There were the others too, that's right, but for us delinquents he had always been our leader and he would have been, no matter what. I left him alone dealing with the pain of having lost so many people, I left him with the burden of being the commander".

"And what did he do?"

"He went crazy, in a way. He was overwhelmed by the weight of his past choices and found in a ruler in our camp the guide he needed, the friend he had lost. The point is, he wasn't a good ruler. He was too idealistic and couldn't see the hypocrisy of his plans and it wasn't Bellamy's fault, everything that happened later, it was just my fault".

"But then" she went on "Then he came back to his old self, to the man that wouldn't let me pull that lever in Mount Weather alone and held my hand when I was scared and lost as the black blood was coming through my veins, he held my hand for the whole time I was fighting the city of light and protected me with everything he had".

"He saved my life. He saved all our lives".

"That's why you keep trying to call him everyday, no matter what?"

"That's why, my little _natblida_ , I hope everyday, everynight, he will come back. Because we need him, because I need him. Because I know the moment the Earth will live again, others will come and I won't be able to take the right decisions alone. I need him to tell me what to do when the rational part of me will obscure my feelings, I need his heart to tell me when to risk and when not to, when even a single life is worth the danger, when being human is more important than being right".

"And will he? Will he come back?"

"He will" she answered, without any doubt "He will" she repeated.


	7. The princess

**Once upon a time**

7\. the princess

Madi would have never thought of it but months later, when flowers were blooming on trees and fish were swimming in the rivers, when the air was fresh again and bioluminescent butterflies could be seen flying in the moondust, a man joined her on the cliff where Clarke used to call the sky and sat next to her, admiring the beauty of a totally reborn nature. He looked up to space the way she used to do so much and searched for life with the same melancholy she used to wear.

It was then she decided to tell him about the stories she used to tell her, about the guys who fell from the sky, the guys who fought the world and inherited the planet before being forced to come back to space again.

He was surprised at first, amazed by the sweetness Clarke had remembered them with, impressed by the strenght she had had in order to talk about the past. He was completely stolen by the enthusiasm in Madi's eyes as she was telling him about a human who had lived under the floor for sixteen years and managed to become the commander everyone was looking for; about a boy always wearing glasses and smiles; about a monster who was a good monster and saved them all. He was smiling when she told him about a survivor who fell in love and changed himself; about a doctor that was a saviour and that was also a mother.

She stopped for a moment, checking behind her, before telling him the last story, the story of a guy who was a rebel, who was a leader. A guy who had a costellations of stars on his face and brown curled hair crowning a pair of greenish eyes. A guy with very a big heart.

The man was almost shocked at that revelation, confused and relieved at the same time. Maybe those stories had been a way to keep Clarke safe, a way to keep her alive.  
He thought for a bit, trying to remember how it was when he used to tell his sister stories about the ancient mythology, before locking his gaze with Madi's one and beginning narrating.

"Tonight" he started "I will be the one telling a story. And it will be, as the past ones, a story about the guys who fell from the sky, about the guys who fought the world and inherited the planet before being forced to come back to space again. However, it will also be the story of a princess" he added "A princess with long blonde hair and eyes as blue as the ocean".

Madi smiled, immediatly guessing the protagonist she was longing for.

"This princess, little and not so little anymore _natblida_ , was a brave princess as from the very first day we arrived here, she put her life on the first line, she put others before herself trying to protect the home we had managed to build together.  
She was a stubborn princess too. Everything I said, it was wrong. Everything she said, it was right. The point is, that it was really that way: she was mostly right and she was the one thanks to whom we are still alive, although she will probably never take credit for that.  
She was a humble princess, she never thought she could rule, she just had to. _We_ just had to. And she wasn't prepared for what we had to witness, she wasn't prepared for what we had to face, but she faced it, anyway, in order to protect us all. We were something more than kids when we were sent here, so confused in a way, so scared of what we could have found, but she didn't lose her mind and giving all of herself _when nobody asked her to_ she sacrificed a lot for us. Too much, I come to think sometimes"

"That's Mount Weather, right?" Madi suddenly asked, trying to get together the puzzle of a past she was now beginning to understand.

"Yeah, she sacrificed a lot in Mount Weather. She didn't lose someone in particular, back there, as other might have, but she took the weight of all their deaths, of all their lives. By pulling that lever, she said goodbye to the kid she still was, to the innocence she completely lost as a series of demons wouldn't have let her sleep peaceful dreams for a long time. No one really understood it, but Mount Weather had terrible consequences for both of us. No one really believed it was difficult for us as we were the leaders and we were supposed to make hard choices, but Mount Weather was something different, was something more, something worse than a bad decision. It was the moment we both realised we weren't human anymore".

"But you once said that who you are and what you have to do to survive, are very different things, didn't you?"

"I did. And maybe it's right, maybe we were still human. But the point is we didn't feel like that anymore as the thought of what we had done kept tormenting our sleep, kept reminding us of all those people we had taken from life. And it was the only choice we had, as she might have told you, it was the only one, but still it wasn't easy to get over it".

"And then the princess ran away leaving the leader behind, leaving him alone with demons and people to protect. And the prince went mad before coming back to his old self. But what about the princess? Did she go mad too? She was alone too, wasn't she?"

"She was alone too. The only difference is that she didn't have people to guide. I won't lie to you, I don't think it's either fair nor reasonable: I hated her so much for leaving and I couldn't bare the fact of being left behind, I couldn't bare the fact of being the only one who had to deal with responsabilities. However, she was alone too. She was away, far away from her home, but at the same time she was trying to find a solution that would have been convenient for us all. Even among the grounders, she was trying to protect us".

"Did she side with the grounders?!"

"She didn't really side with them in the meaning that she abandoned us. She sided with them in order to convince them we had to cooperate for the sake of everyone. She actually fell in love with a grounder too and it happened the grounder was the commander of all the grounders"

"Did she? Wasn't she in love with the deer boy?" Madi asked, a suprised look on her face that made the man laugh for minutes without stopping.

"She was, but then she fell in love a second time"

"And what about a third one?" she hinted, grinning, while looking at the handsome man in front of her who didn't know how to react and tried to carry on with the story, in some way.

"As I was saying before being interrupted, she was with the grounders trying to find a common solution that the moment the commander died, flied away like ashes in the wind. It was then when we finally met again and had to come up with a plan to save us all. There were so many problems, starting with twelve clans without a ruler for the first time and ending with a second wave of radiations on its way with no shelter to protect us. It was a mess. However, she managed to deal with everything and even though she had no crown on her golden hair, she took the pain of the leader and went through it. She had to choose between her own friends deciding who to save and who to kill; she had been called Wanheda, the commander of death, and in that right moment she felt she was, but trust me little and not so little anymore _natblida,_ she wasn't. She wasn't" he repeated.

"And what was she?"

"She was the commander of life. She probably told you Raven and Octavia saved us-"

"The warrior and the human"

"The warrior and the human. However, she was the one that saved us all. She was the one that decided to stay behind, to _die_ , in order to let us _live_. She thought she didn't deserve to survive, she migh have also thought that it was right for her to die, as a payment for her sins, but it wasn't and it isn't. She is the reason we have been alive since the first time we have touched the ground, she is the reason we can breathe now, the reason _I_ can breathe now".

"And how does the story finish, young man? Does the princess find her prince or does she carry on regretting the past and denying herself a future?"

Madi sweared to see the reflection of stars shining in his eyes at that very moment and maybe it was because of the strange light of that night or maybe it was because of the tears that were coming up in the guy's eyes, she couln't tell. But nothing seemed more precious than the emotions he was feeling the moment he stood up and started running to the camp, not so far behind them. Maybe it was the atmosphere, the magic of that new world now finally living and not just surviving, Madi didn't know, but what she knew for sure was that she was grateful to be there, she was grateful to be alive, and grateful to know those guys who fell from the sky, those guys who fought the world and inherited the planet before being forced to come back to space again.  
Those guys who finally managed to come back.

And it was good, to be there, to be alive. It felt so good.


End file.
